The Aftermath of an ***

I don't know what it's like to die. And when I find out, I won't be here to tell you about it. But the day I began reading Oris' future, I came as close to the real thing as possible without passing on to whatever lies beyond life. I felt my soul escaping me in a hundred different ways. My flesh bubbled and baked as I burned at the stake. I couldn't break my way through the ice to reach the oxygen-rich air at the lake's surface; freezing cold water filled my lungs. Malicious hands tightened around my neck, choking me, breaking my cervical vertebrae and rendering my body useless. Weight was piled on top of me, snapping bones one by one until each was ground into dust. Numerous stab wounds bled out, weakening my body but enlarging the crimson puddle beneath it. My lips around the barrel of a gun, it fired and a bullet sailed through my brain, spraying gray matter against the wall behind me.

And all the while, the children were laughing.

"Amethyst, it's you!"

I opened my eyes and I was home.

"We knew you'd come, Amie!"

Except it wasn't my current home. I hadn't seen this place in more than ten years, but it was exactly as I had remembered it: wooden floor and walls, lawn chairs and other secondhand furniture, an old rug on which I was lying, a chest of toys of all sorts, children's drawings tacked to the walls, portraying whimsical creatures and other works of their creative minds, a makeshift shelf that held all of the children's books, two windows and a trapdoor, and hanging below it a rope ladder that descended all the way to the base of the tree in which the little house had been built.

I heard creaking and sensed the subtle movements of the trapdoor as someone climbed the ladder. When the creaking stopped, I heard a familiar rhythmic knock. It was the secret code.

"Who goes there?" I asked because it was part of the rules, although only two people knew the secret code.

"Captain Baldbeard," came a child's voice. As well as a secret code for treefort entry, we had secret identities, a secret handshake, and code words for almost everything. Kids are lucky; they can afford to let their imaginations run wild.

"Access granted." I undid the door's lock and pulled it open, looking down at the boy's beaming face, the twinkle in his vibrant blue eyes and the dimples in his pudgy red cheeks. Smiling back, I held my hand out to him. He grabbed it, and I hoisted him into our treefort. Once inside, as I was busy locking the door behind him, Kirby sat in his favorite chair, the only one not occupied by the other children in the fort. I didn't know why there were other children here. Kirby and I didn't like visitors; the others weren't like us. They weren't special.

Kirby began pulling snacks out of his knapsack: two juiceboxes, half a package of crackers and a can of spray cheese, and two chocolate chip cookies from the jar in his kitchen, which he would later be scolded for stealing.

"Are you sure that's enough for everyone?" I asked.

Kirby looked up from his arrangement of food on the table. "What do you mean?" His head was cocked to one side, his brow furrowed. "It's just you and me."

I looked to the children, whose laughter grew.

"What are you looking at?" Kirby asked, observing the chairs that, as far as he was concerned, were empty.

"Don't mind us, Amie," one of them said.

"Yes, go on," said another. "It's your day."

"Your special day."

"You're not real!" I shouted. "You can't be real!" I closed my eyes and shook my head violently.

A small hand gently rubbed my back. "Shh," Kirby soothed me. "It's okay, Ams. It's me."

Cautiously, I allowed my eyelids to part. The children were gone; not a trace of them remained.

"You know I'd never let any outsiders come up here," Kirby said. "Especially not on your birthday."

Suddenly I remembered. After all the years it took me to repress memories of this day, here I was, living it all over again.

My heart filled with dread, I wondered what other monstrosities I was soon going to find inside my own soul.